Exactly.

Now had Jones ran into him and "tripped over" then at least there's an argument to be made that the defender was offside. But to throw the ball forward at him is a disgrace. The ref should have known better than to give that. There is no situation where that would have been legal.

Correct , the moment the ball left his hand forward before it hit the player it was a pass , so scrum to opposition

If as happened last week when Hood threw the ball back into the line and hit the Cas player , then that was a legitimate offside

My apologies. As Huddersfield have done nothing for years and been so unmemorable my memory has been hazy. Let me rephrase it. Remind me again how Huddersfield cheated, sorry, avoided relegation 18 seasons ago?

Regards

King James

That would be the year we finished bottom again and expected to be relegated, only for the RFL to deny Hunslet, who had won the NFP Grand Final, entry into Super League the following year based on their ground not meeting criteria/standards required ?

Or is that not the answer you wanted ?

It's so easy to fix - I can't see any controversy. If the defender is interfering with play in a meaningful way - it's a penalty to the attacking team. If the attacker commits what would ordinarily be an offence in trying to prove that the defender is interfering - he has still committed an offence and that should be penalised in the way it normally would; in the Jones instance, a forward pass.

I guess it relies on the ref being able to differentiate one from the other, so if you want to be charitable, you could suggest that the players don't have confidence in the officials to do that consistently, so they try to force the issue; personally I don't believe that - I think it's just cynical cheating.

It seems the RFL are listening!

I expect defenders to just stand around doing their nails now

Is a deliberate forward pass not a penalty now? (Or has it ever been?

)

Wow.... Common sense actuallly prevails for once... I just hope they also apply this to the PTB area - if the Ref is calling 'milking', it should be followed by a penalty of this nature!

The problem with the RFL statement is that the defenders tended not to be penalised for interference unless the ball hits them or an attacker runs into them which is why the dummy half started throwing the ball into the defender in the first place. This was generally in done in the interest of letting the game flow which is not necessarily a bad thing.

This relies on refs having the understanding of when the defender is affecting play which I'm not sure too many refs are able to do.

I dunno - I think it's pretty clear if someone is trying to impede or not - also if they are making sufficient effort to clear the ruck/not stand in passing lanes etc.

I dont think we'll see too much of it now anyway, it's not worth conceding a penalty over when you could keep the ball and attack

We also don't need defenders loitering around the ptb after a tackle, slowing it down thinking they can get away with it.